


Yuri Plisetsky, in the Hotel Room, with a Knife

by VSSAKJ



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Serial Killers, Gen, Trick or Treat: Trick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-31
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2019-01-26 22:21:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12567480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VSSAKJ/pseuds/VSSAKJ
Summary: A week before the Grand Prix Final, Victor Nikiforov is dead.





	Yuri Plisetsky, in the Hotel Room, with a Knife

**Author's Note:**

  * For [havisham](https://archiveofourown.org/users/havisham/gifts).



> Happy Trick or Treat! I loved this prompt, so I hope you enjoy the result. I've tagged it as a Trick for the subject matter, but it's generally pretty light-hearted.

A week before the Grand Prix Final, at 7:06 am, Victor Nikiforov was found dead.

“They’ve got Katsudon in there first.” Yuri spreads his hands and leans back on the plastic bench they’ve been made to share, his knees knocking against Otabek’s on one side and Christophe’s on the other. “Anyone would know he hasn’t got it in him. Just because he _found_ Victor—”

“That’s how it works, Yuri.” Otabek speaks quietly, his hands folded together and his brows drawn down. “The first person on the scene is always a suspect.”

“So why are _we_ here?” The pacing Jean-Jacques asks, having already insisted he’s too tall to feel comfortable on the cramped seating. “Was there no one else in the hotel?”

“Of course there was.” Christophe scoffs, gesturing with one hand, “But we have motive.”

“Do we?” Yuri and Jean-Jacques ask together, and Otabek sighs impatiently.

“Of course we do. The Final’s next week, and Victor is competition for all of us.”

Yuri shakes his head, raring to start an argument with him, but just then the door opens and a teary-eyed Katsuki Yuuri rejoins them, holding his hands together in front of him. He mumbles a thank you to the officer and moves to take up the space just vacated by Otabek—where he’d usually thank Otabek for the kindness, he doesn’t even glance up. The officer looks at his sheet, then says “Jean-Jacques Leroy, come with me.”

Jean-Jacques straightens his back and follows the officer, casting one sorry look over his should at the dejected Yuuri. Once he’s left the room, Christophe leans across Yuri’s lap to pat Yuuri’s knee, ignoring Yuri’s yelp of, “Hey!”

“Are you all right, Yuuri?” Christophe asks, his voice gentle.

Yuuri nods miserably, saying only, “I’m not supposed to talk about it.”

“What, like the details? The news already has ‘em.” Yuri holds up his phone, open to a live news feed telling the world about the death of beloved former world champion Victor Nikiforov. He flicks the screen with his thumb and then holds it before him, reciting, “ _‘Police have confirmed that Russian figure skater Victor Nikiforov was found dead in his hotel room this morning. There were some signs of a struggle and police advise they are treating this as a homicide investigation. Since returning to the competitive circuit, Nikiforov and his partner Katsuki Yuuri, also a professional figure skater, traditionally book separate hotel rooms prior to competitions so that—’_ ”

Yuuri bows his head into his hands, his shoulders starting to shake. Otabek snatches Yuri’s phone from his hand, snapping, “Have some sense, Yuri!”

“ _‘All skaters booked into the hotel have been taken in for questioning.’_ ” Yuri finishes dumbly, edging away from Yuuri despite the fact that it pushes him into Christophe. Christophe stands, gesturing for Yuri to slide down the bench so he can sit alongside Yuuri and rub his shoulders.

“This is bullshit.” Yuri says to no one in particular.

 

Over twelve hours later, the sound of Otabek’s pen scratching away at a notebook fills a hotel room. Lying on the bed on his back, Yuri throws a stress ball into the air and catches it as it falls back down, asking after a moment, “You think they have us under observation?”

“Yes.” Otabek replies without looking at him.

“The ISU statement says we’re still gonna be skating next week, too.”

“Delaying the final won’t change who killed Victor, and it won’t stop the police investigating. It might even given them more evidence.”

Yuri scoffs a bit. “How’s that going to happen?”

“People can act strange in a lot of different ways.” Otabek draws a long line in his notebook and then slides a wider, loose sheet of paper towards himself. “Someone who’s normally confident might act nervous. It’ll be easy for them to see.”

Yuri frowns, sitting up and leaving the ball to one side, “You’re being weird. Why are you so into this shit? It’s not your job to figure it all out.”

“I know.” Otabek doesn’t say anything further, continuing with his notes. 

Yuri stands and leans over his shoulder; Otabek’s map of the hotel is covered in Cyrillic scribbles, which Yuri can read, but the notes are clearly in Kazakh, which he doesn’t understand. Instead, he points to one name on Otabek’s list of suspects, written out in English. “Why’s Phichit on here? He’s not in the finals.”

“He’s in seventh place. He stands to gain from Victor being disqualified, even if that disqualification is death. So he’s a suspect.”

“How is he supposed to kill Victor when he’s in Thailand and we’re here?” Yuri demands impatiently, hands on his hips.

“With an accomplice.” Otabek replies without looking up; he puts a tick down next to Jean-Jacques’s name in pen, then swaps to a pencil to draw a light line through Yuuri’s name.

“You haven’t crossed us out.” Yuri accuses, pointing a second time.

Otabek brushes his hand away. “I haven’t eliminated us yet.”

“I didn’t kill him!”

“I don’t think so either, but I want to be able to prove it.” Another tick, this time next to Christophe’s name.

That’s it. Yuri shoves a load of Otabek’s research onto the floor, shouting at the top of his lungs, “This is insane! You’re a fucking psycho! If you think I’d kill anyone then you’re an idiot!” Fuming, he kicks one of the pens that’s fallen to the floor, turning his back on an expression he isn’t interested in seeing on Otabek’s face. He stumps over to the door, opens it, and calls back moodily over his shoulder, “Some friend you are.”

He slams the door behind him, the sound reveberating through his whole body as he sulks down the hall to his own room.

By midnight, he’s cooled off. Lit only by the glow of his phone, Yuri taps out a text: _‘hey, you still cool for practice tomorrow?’_

It takes Otabek only a few minutes to reply: _‘yeah, see you in the AM’_

Yuri isn’t surprised Otabek’s still awake—he’s not someone who gives up easily, and he’s smart enough to figure this whole stupid thing out.Yuri bites his lip and adds: _‘good luck with your murder solving and shit’_

 _‘thnx :)’_ is Otabek’s reply, and that’s as to close ‘apology accepted’ as Yuri wants. He flings his phone to the opposite side of the bed and flips onto his back; he kicks the covers off and pulls them back up his torso. He’s sure this bed wasn’t so uncomfortable the night before last.

After tossing and turning for at least half an hour, he jumps out of bed, prowling to his door to peer through the peephole like some crazy with an axe will be waiting right outside. He throws the bolt and darts over to the far side of the room, shoving the armchair into place. It doesn’t make it all the way to the door, wedging between the side of the bathroom and the wall opposite, but it’s good enough.

 _‘This way,’_ Yuri decides, sliding back into bed and yanking the covers up to his chin, _‘the bastard’ll trip and I’ll get the chance to fight him off.’_

He never thinks of himself as afraid.

 

The following morning, his skates slung over his shoulder and his hands stuffed into his jacket pockets, Yuri stands outside the door to Otabek’s hotel room and kicks it, shouting, “Oi, Otabek! Food then practice, yeah? Come on, you better be awake.”

It’s too hard to hear anything over the woman vacuuming the hallway, so he crosses his arms, leans against the wall, and pulls out his phone. After ten minutes, he’s exhausted his Instagram feed and started to feel nervous—he hits the door again, this time with a fist, “Otabek, come on! Let’s get going!”

His heart starts pounding when there’s still no response.

The vacuum whines right behind him, and he whirls around, jabbing his thumb back in the direction of Otabek’s door, “Hey! Let me in there!”

The cleaning woman stares, nonplussed.

“What, you deaf? I said let me in! I need to know he’s okay!” Yuri steps closer, shouting in her face, “Don’t you know someone died here yesterday?! That’s my best friend in there, I need to make sure he’s okay!”

“I can’t let you in.” The woman says softly, holding her hands up in submission and backing away from him.

“Fuck that!” Yuri snarls, darting in to seize the keycard in her pocket despite her shove of protest. Once he has it in hand, he throws himself against Otabek’s door, swiping it through the slot and pushing the door open.

The curtains are still drawn, and the room is dark. There isn’t a sound, other than his own heavy breathing. Yuri flips the light on and then swears; the cleaning woman, creeping forward to reclaim her key, gives a shriek and runs away down the hallway.

The room looks like a whirlwind’s gone through it: papers everywhere, the desk chair tumbled across the floor, a gash in the wallpaper. There’s a streak of blood on the floor and the bedcovers, and Otabek’s just lying there, not moving. Yuri feels his hands start to shake as his brain puts together what the two things mean—then _he’s_ a whirlwind, diving for Otabek’s desk and flicking desperately through the pile for that list of names Otabek had been working on. He finds the the map covered in Otabek’s notes instead; it gets shoved into his pocket before he continues searching, but he can hear people beginning to thunder up the hallway. He feels like he’s just skated Agape three times in sequence when his eyes light on a letter opener on the desk, shiny and red-streaked.

Yuri swears a dozen times, kicking the desk because he can see no better outlet for his fury. It’s easier to be angry than to be sad, and when the hotel manager arrives with security in tow, he shouts at them in Russian, telling them to keep their fucking hands off him and to leave Otabek the fuck alone. He ranges near the door like a caged tiger, refusing to let anyone enter the hotel room until the police arrive and remove him, cuffing his hands together behind his back.

He rides alone in the back of a police car, just catching sight of Yuuri, Jean-Jacques, and Christophe being escorted out of the hotel as his car leaves the parking lot.

 

“Yuri, they had you in there for a long time.” Yuuri says with sympathy; this time it’s Christophe who’s gone in for questioning second, and Jean-Jacques is again pacing the room, despite the available space on the bench. Yuuri smiles weakly, looking like he’s lost fifty pounds in a day, “I’m glad you’re all right.”

“All right?” Yuri growls, throwing himself onto one half of the bench and drawing his knees up to his chest, “You think I’m all right? They think I fucking killed Otabek!”

“They think Yuuri killed Victor.” Jean-Jacques interjects, causing Yuuri to inhale sharply.

“And he didn’t either!” Yuri roars, leaping to his feet and pointing accusatorily at Jean-Jacques, “You seem pretty fucking cheerful about all this, why don’t you just confess already?”

“Whoah!” Jean-Jacques raises his hands, “Why would I kill either of them?!”

“So you could win the Final!” Even as the words burst from his mouth, Yuri didn’t believe them. Victor was a league of his own, but Yuri had to admit that Jean-Jacques on his worst day would still put up a damn good fight against any of them. Frowning, he closes his hand around the paper crumpled in his pocket, wondering what Otabek figured out after he left the room last night. He slouches back to his place on the bench, tugging his hood up and crossing his arms over his chest.

The silence hangs; Yuuri looks between them and offers, “The police will figure out what’s going on.”

It does nothing to placate either of them. The sit in silence until the police return Christophe to them and take Yuuri in for his turn. Christophe takes up the other half of the bench, dressed all in black like he’d been since the moment they discovered Victor was dead. He shakes his head, pressing the back of his glove to his eyes and mourning, “It’s all so sad.”

“Of course it’s fucking sad.” Yuri mumbles into his arms.

 

By the time they’re allowed to leave the police station, it’s the middle of the night. Yuri lies in bed with his door barricaded for for a second time, and unfolds the map. By the light of his phone, he reads over the letters in Otabek’s handwriting and wishes he understood what they meant—then he blinks, wondering why he’s been so stupid. He sits up, swiping rapidly at his phone. Moments later, he’s squinting at an app’s shifting translation of Otabek’s shorthand Kazahk.

“Something… Jesus loved him? Win drowning? That doesn’t make sense!” Yuri hisses, hovering the phone over all corners of the paper, “Come on Otabek, give me something I can work with… this says… Thailand!? Oh shit, shit, I didn’t—” Yuri holds his phone tightly and closes his eyes, muttering to himself, “It’s fine. It’s nothing to worry about. Phichit isn’t even _here_. He can’t be the guy.”

Yuri turns over in bed, pressing his fists to his chest and exhaling heavily. It’d be fine. The police had arranged for him and Jean-Jacques to be transferred to a new hotel in the morning, with Yuuri and Christophe going to a different hotel nearby. It wasn’t the most comforting thing he could think of the police doing—when were they going to _catch_ the fucker responsible, if it wasn’t any of them?—but he did like the idea of leaving Victor and Otabek’s bodies behind him in this place.

His phone beeps him awake much too early, but he rolls dutifully out of bed and gets himself packed. All he takes with him are his skates and a backpack with his toothbrush and a change of clothes; someone like Yakov can handle the rest. He stumps down to the hotel lobby to check-out, but at the bottom of the stairs, he freezes in his tracks.

Phichit is standing at the front desk, suitcase by his side.

Yuri sprints across the lobby and launches at Phichit, seizing him by the collar, “What the hell are you doing here?!”

Phichit blinks and splutters, raising his hands and offering a thin, apologetic smile, “Hi, Yuri! I heard about what happened to Victor, so I came to make sure Yuuri was all right. I hope that’s okay with you.”

Yuri kept his grip, leaning in close with a scowl, “Where are your skates?”

“I’m not competing, Yuri, I’m not allowed and I don’t want to.” Phichit edges away from him slightly, and Yuri lets him go. Rubbing his throat, Phichit looks over Yuri’s shoulder, “Do you know where Yuuri is? What his room number is?”

Yuri scowls, but Phichit just isn’t a good enough actor for him to be faking it. Hackles up, he shoves his hands into his pockets and growls, “He’s probably moved already. The police are trying to make sure the rest of us don’t die.”

“What…?” Phichit queries, but Yuri doesn’t answer him, and he can’t blame Phichit for staying behind. Then he’s in the back of a cab, sullen and glaring, watching the world go by the window and wondering why it seems like a different place than it was a week ago.

 

By the next morning, the ISU still hasn’t cancelled the Grand Prix Final, and Yuri’s decided not to bother with the investigation anymore. It’s not his job, and he’s no damn good at it anyway. He’s running out of days to practice and he’ll be damned if he loses his title to anyone over this stupid bullshit.

So it is that he finds himself in the hotel’s restaurant at half past eight, shovelling eggs into his mouth and scrolling up his Instagram feed. He’s so determined to have a normal morning that he almost scrolls past the caption on a newly-posted image by Phichit. There’s a single gold band on a finger, followed by the simple caption _‘rip katsuki yuuri, my best friend.’_

Yuri almost chokes.

He drops his fork, switches apps, and furiously taps out a text: _‘what happened to katsudon???’_

Reliably, Phichit responds within a few seconds: _‘i’m sorry yuri, they found him dead this morning. :( at least maybe he can be with victor again now.’_

Yuri’s in the middle of making a disgusted expression at his screen when Phichit’s next message arrives: _‘i’m going w/ the police but they can’t find chris. can u find JJ and let him know?’_

His every instinct demands he give the response ‘JJ can go fuck himself’, but Yuri resists it and shoots to his feet instead, sprinting from the dining room. His heart is racing again, and as he dashes down the hallway, he finds himself wishing he’d finished his orange juice before running off to get himself stabbed.

 _This is a stupid idea._ Yuri tells himself as he skids to a stop outside Jean-Jacques’s door. _This is so stupid and I’m gonna die. He’s going to kill me and I’m gonna die._ He hammers on the door with his fist, shouting, “Open up, dumbass! You better not be dead in there!”

The silence is deafening.

Shit. Yuri slams his fist against the door so hard it hurts, then presses his back against the hallway wall outside the room, exhaling a long breath. He fishes out his phone to find it alight with notifications, with fans from all over the world begging him to confirm that he’s okay; that’s even more uncomfortable than the fact that Jean-Jacques Leroy could be dead a just few feet away from him.

He flips across to the text app and sees no further contact from Phichit; he hovers his thumb over the letters, starting at least two texts before he finally sends, _‘he’s not answering’_

Phichit’s replies ping back like lightning, three texts in quick succession: _‘ok :((’_ , _‘police r coming’_ , and _‘BE SAFE !! :o :)’_

“Shut up Phichit…” Yuri mutters to himself, watching his knuckles turn white around the edge of his phone. Whatever. Fuck this shit. Police or not, he’s going skating.

He shoves his phone back into his pocket and walks back down the hallway to his own room, swiping the key through the slot and opening the door.

Yuri’s mouth drops open. “Holy shit.”

Jean-Jacques Leroy is kneeling on his bed, with a gag in his mouth and his arms bound behind his back. Christophe stands before Jean-Jacques with a letter opener in hand, looking over his shoulder towards Yuri. He grins—the expression’s grotesque. “Good morning, Yuri. Good of you to join us.”

“What are you doing?” Yuri hates the wobble in his voice and slowly shifts his thumb in his pocket. The police are coming. Phichit said the police are coming. If he can just… keep them alive until then…

Christophe laughs. “What does it look like? I’m framing you.”

“Um—” Yuri starts to speak, but Christophe interrupts him by striding across the room. Yuri wills himself to shake off the terror fixing him in place and run away… only that would leave Jean-Jacques here alone, and he isn’t sure he can live with remembering the pathetic expression on Jean-Jacques’s face for the rest of his life. He watches Christophe lean over and shut the door behind him, and as he does, Yuri finishes swiping in a way that _should_ have started a livestream on Instagram.

“Why don’t you take a seat, Yuri?” Christophe leers in his ear, and Yuri shoves past him despite the threat of the letter opener.

Conscious of the video hopefully running in his pocket, he asks loudly, “What are you doing, Chris?” He whirls around to place himself between Christophe and the helpless Jean-Jacques, hating the fact that Christophe feels three times taller than usual.

Christophe’s eyebrow twitches, and he points with the letter opener, voice dropping to a more threatening level, “I told you, I’m framing you. You’re going to kill Jean-Jacques, and then you’re going to be so overcome by remorse for your killing spree that you’ll kill yourself, too. I’ll give you a hand with that.”

“Like hell you will!” Yuri shouts, and Jean-Jacques lurches in futile protest on the bed.

His phone starts to vibrate, but he ignores it.

“Like hell I _won’t_!” Christophe gestures pointedly with the letter opener, clutched tightly in his shaking gloved fingers.

Staring at Christophe’s hands, Yuri realises something. “Those are Victor’s gloves.”

“They are.” Christophe is immediately distracted, stroking his own face with his free hand. “I loved him, you know. I didn’t _want_ to kill him, he was just… getting so far away from me. I couldn’t let Yuuri have him. He didn’t understand Victor the way I do.” No one interrupts him, so Christophe goes on, gently rotating his hips as he speaks. “It was easier than I thought it would be. I just squeezed until…”

Poised on the balls of his feet like an animal ready to flee, Yuri snarls, “What did you kill Otabek for then?”

Jean-Jacques thrashes wildly and gives a long whimper that sounds suspiciously like ‘Please.’

“He stuck his nose in where it didn’t belong.” Christophe’s expression darkens, and he runs his fingers down the letter opener. “It’s how own fault.”

Yuri’s chest is pounding so much he can barely feel the vibrations of his phone. “And Katsudon? What was your problem with him? You already got Victor.”

Christophe’s laugh thrums through him, and Yuri feels sick. “By then I was just enjoying myself.”

“You’re insane.”

Christophe grins, that same sickening, stretched expression as earlier. He raises the letter opener and cants forward, saying simply, “You’re dead.”

Yuri closes his eyes, crouches, and springs.

He torpedoes into Christophe’s middle like a canonball; Christophe’s breath flies out of him and they both crash to the floor. Yuri scrambles away from Christophe’s grasping hands, groping desperately for something with which defend himself. His fingers tangle in the laces of his skates and he grasps them tightly.

Christophe has regained himself by then and lunges across the floor, his eyes wide and the letter opener raised.

Yuri swings with all his might.

There are two thuds: the first is when his skates smash into the side of Christophe’s head, and the second is when Christophe’s head crashes into the wall of the hotel room. Then he slumps to the ground, unconscious.

Just then, the door swings open, and the police flood in.

 

“What a crazy bastard.” Jean-Jacques observes, rubbing his wrists as they watch the police load Christophe into the back of a car. “Poor guy.”

“Don’t feel sorry for him.” Yuri grumbles, standing alongside with his hands in his pockets. “He killed three people, and he almost killed you and me.”

“True enough.” Jean-Jacques shrugs, then slings his arm around Yuri’s shoulders, leaning over before Yuri can protest, “I guess that makes you my hero, Yuri-chan.”

Yuri doesn’t feel like a hero, but he goes bright red. He shoves Jean-Jacques’s arm off his shoulder, muttering, “Call me that again and I really will kill you.” He catches Jean-Jacques eye, and for some reason, they both laugh.

He might not have solved this thing, but he certainly finished it, and maybe that’s the best he could do. For Victor, for Otabek, and even for Katsudon.


End file.
